What's wrong with our government

("Congressman, I really wish you'd reconsider your vote on deep water drilling in the Gulf....I'd be ever so grateful. Really....I would.")


The NY Post ran an article this morning about how House Minority Leader John Boehner has told GOP congressmen who partied with female lobbyists to "knock it off."

The Post article stated, "While there's no evidence of anything more than friendly flirtatious behavior, the lawmakers have been told to keep partying to a minimum in this midterm election year."

The article went on to cite several examples of Congressmen who had been seen in intimate conversations with "comely lobbyist[s]" in various venues.

When I was working at Goldman, we had a female lobbyist come in to give a presentation to our department one time (the partner in charge of our department had hired her to represent the firm in Washington). She was a very attractive woman, and smart enough. But she also looked, smelled, and carried herself like a high priced hooker.

Which, reading between the lines of the Post article, is what many of these female lobbyists evidently are.

(One wonders exactly how the interview process goes when one of these good-looking women applies for a job at a lobbying firm. How clear is it made to them exactly what the job entails? Or is it left up to them to make clear what they are willing to do for their job? And how exactly do these interviews square with the laws on sexual harassment -- and prostitution?)

Put yourself in the shoes of a congressman from a small town in, say, Nebraska. You've slept with exactly six women in your life (the national average for this particular statistic), one of whom is your wife. But none of the women you've been with had nearly the sexual allure of this incredible-looking creature who is sitting across from you at a fancy restaurant in Georgetown, plying you with drink. And here she is, hinting seductively that if only you would vote to allow, say, more deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, a certain intimacy will ensue. You know that such drilling might result in a horrible accident, but.....damn she looks good.

All your life it seems you've been around women who look and sound like Rachel Maddow, but this woman looks like one of those Fox news analysts.

This, in a nutshell -- or perhaps in a tight-fitting cocktail dress -- is what's wrong with our government. Congressmen are all too often willing to sell their country out for a campaign contribution -- or for a romp with the kind of woman they never got before they were congressmen.

When you think about it, this kind of behavior is downright treasonous -- and there ought to be penalties attached which reflect that.

(The only other entities which employ such honey traps are foreign intelligence services, which don't exactly have the best interests of the American people at heart either.)

But the only people who could pass a law against this sort of thing are, well, congressmen, many of whom know that their fastest ticket to wealth is to become lobbyists themselves after they leave office. And why would they voluntarily give up the kinds of goodies which are available to them before they leave office?

This is an issue which needs more airtime.

The lack of seriousness with which this issue is taken may best be indicated by the fact that the Post only ran their article as an item on Page Six.

(The NY Times, of course, would never run it at all, since even bringing up such a topic would imply that some women actually voluntarily sleep with men as part of their jobs, and that would be sexist.)